


I Don't Cry No More

by SpiderButler



Series: Angels Fall Without You There [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Swan, dark killian, possible trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 14:22:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5251478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiderButler/pseuds/SpiderButler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma is done fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Cry No More

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lover Is Childlike, by The Low Anthem
> 
> Please read the notes at the end as well :)
> 
> The link is just an example of the image I had, you can use your imagination if you like x
> 
> Trigger warnings.
> 
> (The works in this series cross over, but each one contains its own scenes as well)

Emma has nothing. She has no reason to live anymore. Henry hates her. Killian hates her. Regina hates her. Her parents don’t hate her, but that’s because they’ve got some twisted guilt complex about sticking her in a wardrobe when she was hours old. All she wants is to escape. She’s done now. She’s lived her fate and she’s dragged everyone else down with her. And now she’s done. She spends her hours, days, weeks (she has no concept of time anymore), sitting and staring out the window. She watches as the sky darkens and as it glows with new light again. A never-ending cycle that exhausts Emma more now than ever before. Her bun begins to fall apart, first wisps then full locks of hair, until its just a pile of crystal white strands that fall around her shoulders, or knot at the back of her head. She avoids all mirrors, doesn’t want to see the dim echo of a woman that is her appearance now. The darkness doesn’t disturb her anymore, just a quiet whispering in the deep recesses of her mind. Of course, it is _now_ that she has learned to control it, _now_ that she can ignore it. _Now_ , when it has taken everything. 

The dagger sits on the kitchen table, disregarded and exposed. Really, at this point anyone could walk in, grab it and bend her to their will. She’s surprised no one’s tried, to be honest. She wouldn’t stop them. 

* * *

It’s just another day when Emma makes the decision. The dagger sits there, mocking her. _I want to hurt you, the way you hurt me._ It’s as useless as she is now, with no one to use it, and a Dark One who’s given up. Nimue, and Rumplestiltskin, and all the other hooded figures with glowing eyes have slunk away, gone to their own hell to wait for the next battered soul. There is nobody, Emma is completely alone. 

It’s this final thought that pulls Emma into action. She walks to the one mirror in the entire house, and pulls out every pin until her hair falls around her shoulders comfortably. She combs her fingers through it, and it returns almost to her curls before. But the ashen curse doesn’t lift, her golden locks a thing of the past, and Emma doesn’t see herself when she looks in the mirror. She doesn’t know what she sees anymore. Her hands find the leather of her clothes before she even realises what she’s doing and she’s pulling it away, ripping it from her body. It’s ridiculous, but she finds herself in [a white dress](http://www.stylebistro.com/Ginnifer+Goodwin/lookbooks), soft and simple, so unlike the Dark One, so similar to her skin that Emma almost wonders if she’s truly faded away when she sees herself. She doesn’t bother with shoes, her feet flat on the cool ground in a way that she has not felt in what could be years. Nothing can hurt her anyway, so she has no trouble slipping out of the house like this. She stands in her garden and ghosts her hand over the grass. Pink roses spring from the ground and Emma shears them away with the dagger, flowers in one hand and weapon in the other. 

The thorns prick at her skin but she doesn’t bleed, barely feels them and she continues to cut until she can’t fit another in her hand. She stands then, and she walks. There’s no point returning to the house, there’s nothing left for her there. Instead, she continues with her fate. She walks the street, bare feet against concrete and she doesn’t stop when everything around her does. She can feel the eyes on her, the gasps and whispers. The Dark Swan, devil incarnate, dressed like an angel. 

She walks until she reaches the mayor’s big, white house, a polar opposite to her own. Her silent steps carry her until she meets the front door. Then she bends and lays three roses at the door. She stands for a moment, looks at them, and then she turns away and walks the path again. She doesn't look back, following the road to her parent’s apartment. Her feet are soundless on the stairs and she leaves three roses at the door again, and then, again, retraces her steps away. She leaves two roses at the door of the pawn shop, and one (and a necklace) on a grave which still looks too new, and another (and a shoelace) which is more overgrown. One holds a man without a heart and the other holds a man who’s heart was too big. She leaves another on the table in Marco’s workshop. She pauses as her feet hit the docks, only for a second, but then she keeps walking, straight onto the Jolly Roger. She leaves a single rose at the door of the Captain’s quarters (and a ring on a chain) and then she walks straight back off. She can’t resist leaving one at the table outside Granny’s or one in the middle of the road. She leaves one on the wall that borders the sea and she closes her eyes and imagines roses, one at the base of a beanstalk and in a secluded spot in Neverland and on a park bench in New York. She can’t get there, not on foot, and so she hopes that they land where she willed them to go. She pauses again before imagining the front of her own house. But she leaves two there as well. It was, is, after all, their home too. 

With one rose left, she walks the final journey she is to make. She walks until she meets the town line and her toes meet the orange line. She stands with her face to the big wide world, one she explored so little of, and her back to the town she explored so much of. She pulls the petals from the final rose, and lets them float around her, some flying away, and others tangling in her hair, her dress. She raises her eyes for one last look at the world that was so cruel to her, yet she loved so much. And then she presses the tip of the dagger to her ribs.

 _This is the end_.

**Author's Note:**

> Duh duh duhhh! I really would love to continue this fic from another character's POV, or tie it to another fic from another character's POV. If you have any suggestions as to who's point of view you'd like to see this from (it can be pretty much anyone) let me know in the comments :)
> 
> Also Emma is not necessarily dead- I thought it would be interesting as (as far as I know) no one's explored the idea of the Dark One destroying themselves, and if that's even possible.


End file.
